“We’ll just have to take our chances, dear,” Filippo said. “There’s no turning back now.”
7
After they retired to the salotto blu, their ominous number was diminished by one. Mamma Zeno no sooner heard there now would be a bridge game and charades than she pronounced herself ready for bed and made it clear she wanted Bambina to accompany her.
“Charades, Mamma! You know how much I love charades!”
“You do?”
“Of course.” Bambina laughed her girlish laugh. “I played them every summer when we used to go to Bellagio. In English! With all those Americans and English that stayed at the Hotel Grande Bretagne. You remember.”
It didn’t seem that her mother did or, if she did, that at the moment she didn’t choose to. She insisted that Bambina see her up to her room, and mother and daughter left.
As they waited for Bambina to return, conversation was desultory until Angelica discovered the Contessa’s collection of Venetian paperweights. She picked up one of the mille fiori balls and stared at it with an almost rapt expression on her thin, pale face.
“That one belonged to Colette,” the Contessa said. “It used to be in her bedroom.”
“Ah, La Colette,” Oriana apostrophized. “You are my soul mate! Chéri! The Last of Chéri!”
Under the amused glance of her husband, she enthused at great length over Colette’s novels about the love affair between an aging courtesan and a young man.
“Did you know Colette?” Sebastian asked, trying to restrain a grin, when she had finished.
“Bosom buddies, my charming young man! We went around Paris together in the twenties! I’m joking, of course!” she said with evident irritation when he seemed about to ask her something else. “Where is Bambina? She’s taking forever!”
She no sooner said this than the round little woman appeared at the door, looking flushed and strangely self-satisfied. She gave the Contessa a glance and seemed to be repressing a smile as she bustled across the room to Molly and Dr. Vasco, who were once again ensconced in a corner together, whispering furiously.
“I want to be on your team,” she said to Molly. “You must win all the time.”
“Quite the reverse, dearie.”
“Don’t let Molly fool you,” Sebastian said. “She’s ingenious at them, I’m sure. First rule of games-playing is never to believe a word of what the opponent says.”
“Urbino, why don’t you get the charades organized?” the Contessa said quickly. “I’ll see to bridge.”
But she had some trouble getting four players. Only Oriana and Filippo showed an interest in joining her.
“I suppose we can play dummy bridge,” the Contessa said when still no one volunteered to join them. “Oriana, you can play the dummy hand, if you don’t mind?”
“But I do! Have we got our group down to twelve just to play dummy bridge? You know what it is in Italian!”
“What’s she talking about?” Viola asked Urbino.
“Morto. It means to be the dead person. Same in French.”
“Now I see why Father always told us to beware of the Continent! Dangers lurk even in the tongue!”
“Won’t someone rescue us from this silly situation?” the Contessa threw out to the room at large.
“Perhaps a game of bridge will be a fitting end to a wonderful evening,” Dr. Vasco said.
“Our knight of the evening,” the Contessa said.
“Don Quixote is more like it,” Sebastian said loud enough for everyone to hear.
“I assure you, young man, that I would recognize a windmill for what it is, and I see none around here,” Dr. Vasco said as he went over to the bridge table. “Nor any ordinary wenches, either,” he added as he grinned at Oriana, looking like a death’s head.
Oriana gave an involuntary shiver, only marginally less pleased to have the cadaverous Vasco as her partner than to be the dummy. Even more disturbed by the arrangement, however, was the abandoned Molly, who glared the full force of her ill will at Oriana through her impossibly thick spectacles.
Despairing of any smooth interludes that lasted for longer than a few minutes this evening, Urbino quickly explained the rules for the charades.
“All topics will be in English, since Gemma and Bambina obviously know English better than the rest of us do Italian,” he began.
“Spoken ever so humbly for yourself,” Viola said with a smile.
“Except for proper names, of course, like—like Vivaldi or Veronese,” Urbino went on. “Also, all topics will be on a Venetian theme. For example, the Bridge of Sighs or Grand Canal. We’re going to need a timekeeper.” He looked at the group, which included himself, Viola, Sebastian, Bambina, Gemma, Robert, Angelica, and Molly. “Is everyone going to play?” he asked, feeling more and more like a master of ceremonies for a less than enthusiastic group of celebrants—except for Bambina, who was close to squirming in anticipation.
“I’ll just watch,” Angelica said and drew her limbs more closely to her on the sofa.
“I will, too,” Robert said.
“Oh, not on my account, Robert. I’ll cheer you on.”
A less energetic or mirthful cheerleader Urbino could hardly imagine, unless it were Mamma Zeno, who had already retired.
“I’ll be timekeeper,” Molly volunteered and raised her arm to display her watch as if its outrageously colored bands and stars alone qualified her for the job.
Urbino wrote the names of the six players on slips of paper and had Angelica draw for the teams. It fell out that Sebastian, Gemma, and Bambina composed one team, and Urbino, Viola, and Robert the other.
Urbino went to the library and gathered up half a dozen books on Venice and brought them back to the salotto.
“To give us some ideas. But please, let’s not be too esoteric.”
“Most definitely not,” Viola mocked him with a smile.
They spent ten minutes selecting and writing down their topics. Urbino was pleased to see that there was at least some of the usual giggling—although all Bambina’s—and self-satisfied nods and stares, which were brought off with theatrical aplomb by Sebastian.
Molly sat in a chair placed between the two facing sofas on which the rival groups sat.
Urbino’s team got off to a bad start. Robert, despite his original reluctance, gave an energetic impersonation of a crazed bull, enacted an assault on a woman he carved in the air with his arms, and then pointed furiously at the painting over the mantelpiece. It was only a few seconds before their time was up that Urbino identified the painting as Veronese’s Rape of Europa at the Doges’ Palace. Sebastian’s smirk identified the topic as his own.
Sebastian’s moment of victory was short-lived, however, for it fell to his lot to draw “Giorgione,” his sister’s offering. He spent many long precious moments trying to act out the syllables but he—and Gemma and Bambina along with him—became completely confused as he switched without any indication from English to Italian words and back again. Then his face lit up and he started pointing repeatedly to Bambina, pulled the skin of his face down with his fingers, and gave a slow, labored walk between the two sofas.
When he pointed again to a bewildered and increasingly uncomfortable-looking Bambina, Gemma leaned forward and, in a voice that managed to contain a strong suggestion of both reproach and victory, said, “La Vecchia! It’s ‘Giorgione’!” She had identified the artist from one of his most famous paintings, La Vecchia, or The Old Woman, which hung in the Accademia.
Gemma’s eyes took in Bambina’s shocked expression, and the ghost of a smile played across her lips.
“Thank God I remembered the painting!” Sebastian cried.
It would have been better—and easier, considering the storm outside—if he had remembered Giorgione’s La Tempesta instead, thought Urbino. Bambina was totally discomposed. Her painted face had collapsed and there were tears in her eyes. At the moment, if you ignored the vivid, curled hair and imagined a white cloth cap on her head, she did i
ndeed resemble Giorgione’s painted warning of what we all would become with time.
She glared first at Sebastian, then at Viola, who was proudly acknowledging that “Giorgione” had been her choice. It was obvious that Bambina considered the twins to have been in league to humiliate her. With an abrupt gesture she reached deep into the pocket of her dress, took out her little flask of perfume, and proceeded to douse herself with a liberal amount.
Molly, who had followed all this with a bemused expression, announced that “Giorgione” had been guessed in three seconds less than “The Rape of Europa.”
Fortunately, Urbino next had an easy time with “The Love of Three Oranges,” the play by the Venetian dramatist Carlo Gozzi. He was tempted to use Viola as a convenient prop for love but instead settled for a ridiculous but convincing display of his two hands interlocked over his heart. Bambina’s dudgeon was increased by the rapidity of Viola’s correct guessing, for “The Love of Three Oranges” was her own selection.
She wasn’t so upset, however, that she couldn’t throw herself back into the game. In good time, through a blowing out of her rouged cheeks and furious gestures at the roaring fire and the pagoda chandelier hung with glass and beads, she left Gemma and Sebastian in no doubt that she was making all this effort on behalf of “Murano.”
But despite her performance and the quickness of the others’ response, Molly announced that their rival team was fifteen seconds ahead. When Sebastian started to protest that Molly might have been distracted or, as he put it, “roaming around in the past,” Angelica revealed that she had been keeping time on her own wristwatch, and that Molly was dead right. Robert, who was responsible for “Murano,” gave her a smile of gratitude.
Only two clues remained. Viola, with a few flowing strokes of her hands, conjured up a bed hung with drapes and placed herself within it, only to writhe and try to remove something from her face. It seemed to Urbino that Molly, Bambina, and Gemma—whose clue it was—watched with just as much nervous attention as did he and Robert.
“Desdemona!” Robert cried.
“Right you are,” Viola said. “I absolutely refused to take out my handkerchief and drop it or point to a cushion. That’s cheating, the way I look at it.”
Molly, corroborated by Angelica, told them that the other team would have to guess their clue in ninety seconds or less. Gemma got a little unsteadily to her feet and managed to confound what Urbino had intended as a difficult though not “esoteric” clue by simply sketching a Star of David in the air and getting Sebastian to cry out in considerably less than the needed time: “The Ghetto”!
Encouraged by his victory, Sebastian suggested that they play another round, this time with “the gloves off,” whatever that might mean. No one seemed inclined. Bambina stood up and said she should see to her mother. Her earlier enthusiasm more than a little dampened, she had perhaps decided that she had already suffered enough buffets for one night from the gentle version of the game and wanted to avoid risking a more robust contest.
After saying good night to the Contessa and the other card players, she left.
The bridge game was far from over, but from a look the Contessa threw Urbino it appeared that she wished it were so that she could call it a night. He had noticed that she had at times shown as much interest in their game as her own, straining to catch the clues and to access the dynamics.
As often happens when one guest leaves, most of the others acted like lemmings to the sea. Gemma, looking more fatigued than before, followed quickly on the heels of her aunt. A few minutes later Angelica and Robert left, then Sebastian, but not before he tried to persuade Viola that she was more tired than she claimed she was.
“I’ll stay awhile longer,” she said, “and keep Urbino company.”
“He still has Molly.”
“Not for long, he doesn’t,” the little woman said. “I think I’ll go up with you, Sebastian. Time to rest these weary bones. Good night, Countess Barbara, and all the rest of you. Sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite—only in a manner of speaking, of course!”
Dr. Vasco watched her retreating figure with intensity.
“Alone together again at last!” Viola said when Urbino had furnished her with a cognac and they were sitting on a sofa by the fire. She looked at the bridge players. “Except for the others caught up in their game.”
She accompanied the emphasis with a smile that she quenched by bringing the cognac glass to her lips.
“I got the sense this evening that a lot was going on that I didn’t catch, and I don’t consider myself a particularly dull-witted girl.”
“I’d say that you’re very much the opposite.”
“But still not witted enough to catch what might have been going on,” she pursued, deflecting his compliment.
“Perhaps you’re just being hard on yourself because you feel guilty.”
“Of what?”
“Of having stirred things up by bringing Molly along.”
“Yes, it has something to do with that, but I don’t feel guilty.” She gave him another smile, but it was a pensive one that quickly faded. “I’m a little bit apprehensive. I get this way from time to time and usually it means nothing but—but sometimes it means a great deal.”
She looked down into her glass and seemed to be considering all the times her uneasiness had presaged something disagreeable. She laughed nervously and looked at him. Her deep green eyes held no glint of humor.
“Don’t tell me that you’re psychic, too.”
“Just call me susceptible,” she said with an attempt at lightness. “I keep getting the feeling that I’ve been through all this before—all our talking and squabbling and drinking and eating this evening. Déjà vu, as I said. I guess the Conte’s memoirs made a strong impression on me—or maybe it was your incomparable skills as a raconteur,” she added, once again trying to be light.
But her face revealed that she was uneasy. She looked at the bridge players again and her eye momentarily caught Dr. Vasco’s.
“That man gives me the creeps!” she said in a carefully guarded voice. “He reminds me of Dr. Caligeri. He’s even interested in mesmerism! I wonder if the victim who does his evil bidding is Mamma Zeno or Bambina? Or maybe he’s preparing Molly for the job, judging by the attention he’s been giving her.”
As if by some sixth sense, Dr. Vasco suddenly lifted his head and looked in their direction. Viola gave a shiver when the physician turned his eyes back to his cards.
“I’m definitely going to lock, bolt, and bar my door tonight,” Viola said. “His room is right next to mine. Whatever was Barbara thinking? I thought she was the type to put all the men in a bachelor wing. Well, Sebastian’s on my other side, thank God.” She took another sip of her cognac and put the glass down. “I think I’ll call it a night. Oh, no need to accompany me through these dark and drafty halls. Just see that Dr. Caligeri doesn’t steal up after me. Besides, there still might be services you have to render Cousin Barbara.”
8
As it turned out, Viola’s parting comment proved to be true, but not until an hour after the bridge party broke up and everyone had retired for the evening.
Alone in his room, a copy of E.T.A. Hoffman’s Doge and Dogaressa lying ignored in his lap, Urbino at first sat mulling things over.
Viola, he felt, had been right. The atmosphere of the Contessa’s house party was charged with something he himself was unable to understand. It had been in the air all afternoon and evening, and wasn’t only—or even largely—attributable to their thirteenth guest and her sallies into the past. If he believed in strange correspondences, he would have said that the storm crashing outside his windows now had been conjured up in some fateful way by the bad weather within.
Almost everyone seemed to be on edge. He could understand the Contessa’s nervousness. She had been dreading this get-together for months. As for the others, they were all related, directly or otherwise, to the tragic death of Renata almost sixty years ago—
all of them, that is, except for the Borellis, Molly, and the twins, unless there was some hidden connection he was as yet unaware of.
Urbino, not only as a biographer but also as a sensitive—sometimes, according to the Contessa, a too-sensitive—man, was well aware of the chill breath that past sorrows and tragedies could blow across the decades. He didn’t need to go any farther than himself to find an example of this. Hadn’t the death of his parents in the car accident, which Molly had referred to this afternoon, dropped a pall on him that still hadn’t quite lifted after all these years?
This question led him to another: Where had Molly’s information about his parents come from? That it could have originated from some power or “gift” that she was blessed or cursed with was too difficult for his logical mind to accept. But if not from there, then from where? And what of her other pronouncements? How much on the money had they been? To judge by the startled reactions of almost everyone, she had hit the mark as precisely with them as she had with him.
What game, if any, was she playing?
At this point in his ruminations there was a quiet knock on his door. It was Lucia, the Contessa’s maid. She handed him a note and left. He opened it and read:
Urbino,
Would you please come to my room at once? And whatever you do, don’t draw any attention!
This somewhat intriguing and vaguely troubling summons sent Urbino out into the hall within seconds, his caftan and Moroccan felt slippers giving him a stealthy feel as he in fact crept stealthily to the Contessa’s bedroom door.
Out here in the hall the sound of the storm was muted. A light showed under the door of the Caravaggio Room at the end of the wing, where Urbino imagined Molly convening with the resident spirits of the place. Vasco’s room was directly across from it, and Robert’s was adjacent to it. Their rooms were dark, as were those of Sebastian and Angelica. Viola’s room was the only one other than the Caravaggio Room that showed a light under the door.
Death in the Palazzo Page 9